Thursday, September 07, 2006

Kickball dorks

After spending some time reading posts on some other sites, site as Kickball365.com, I've come to the conclusion that I'm glad we don't play kickball in Washington DC or one of the other "power kickball" areas. Because, frankly, those guys take the sport part of kickball way too seriously.

I mean, pages and pages of debate on if certain Divisions are major Divisions or just "mid-majors". Days and days of complaining about how WAKA does things a certain way, or how DC Kickball or NAKID (two rival kickball leagues, and I can't believe I typed the words "rival kickball leagues" without doing it in the context of writing a Will Ferrell movie) are superior or inferior. And don't forget the snobbery. One of the posters told me that I should "bring a camera" to the Regionals and World Championships so I could show our Division how real pitchers throw the ball.

I may have mentioned this before, but Scott went to the post-tournament party after the Regionals in LA this summer even though we didn't play. Several of the WAKA "executives" were there. Scott's comment afterwards was something to the effect of "They're a bunch of people who are incredibly pleased with themselves because of the fact that they play kickball." Having done some more research, I know now exactly what he's talking about, and why I never would fit in with that crowd.

At the end of the day, I'm a Ninja first, and more than anything else I'm proud of our team, and all of the absurdist, theatrical bullshit that we do. We've been successful on the field, yes, but that's been a secondary benefit. If I was on a team that took itself way too seriously, treated kickball as a "sport" and not as "a reason to be ridiculous and then go to a bar afterwards", I wouldn't enjoy it nearly as much, even if the team won. I'd enjoy doing what we do just as much if we were on a losing "Operation" league. (Which, after having played a few games during the aborted Board Game Challenge, seems like a fun idea - I own the Funny Bone!)

So, to sum up, I may be one of the Head Ninja Nerds, but I'm not a kickball dork.

2 comments:

Dustin said...

Seriously, who wants to play in a Major Division anyway? The day that my team's record begins being important in "the real world" is a day that I snip my Vas Deferens with gardening shears. Too graphic?

I will say that Matt, the admin for kickball365, has been very supportive of my V-Logs. And for that, I can't make with the hate.

For more on how to enjoy kickball without making it lame, visit http://viewfromhomeplate.blogspot.com/

bluebeagle said...

Yeah I played on a team in Charleston, SC for ONE season, and that's all I could take. Those people take themselves WAY too seriously. I thought I was joining a league to have fun and drink beer. Wrong! Wrong! For the final game (which was the decider if we went to the play offs), I got plowed at the bar before and boy howdy did I have fun. We lost and EVERYBODY but me was pissed. It was AWESOME!